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Had a great day, the weather has been glorious and Caitlin, my stepdaughter came over with Jonah for lunch and spent the afternoon with us. Jonah had a whale of a time in the paddling pool and playing with the water rocket, and when he got tired I got to cuddle him while he sat on my lap and we watched TinTin together. It also gave Caiti and Hubby plenty of time to have a lovely long chat about all kinds of things, which they've really never been able to do before.

After they had gone home we got on with clearing the patio and somehow managed to carry the greenhouse down to the end of the garden (you all should have been flies on the wall for that one - quite an operation, especially as we had to get it across the pond!!). I can't get over how huge the patio looks now, but at least it's all ready for tomorrow and our first viewing.

I am so looking forward to the Easter break, even though the weather forecast is pretty grotty. Of course the country is going to grind to a halt tomorrow because the roads will be gridlocked, most of the railways are closed for engineering works and the airports won't be able to cope with the sheer numbers trying to get away, due to the increased security measures! So anyone with any sense will stay at home, put the TV on, their feet up and just chill. We won't even be able to get out into the garden it's going to be so cold and miserable. Typical British Easter Bank Holiday weather in fact :-) The fact that it's so early this year, the earliest since 1913 I think I heard someone say the other day, doesn't help either. The only cheery thing is that at least the spring flowers are nice and early as well.

We've got the Boy Wonder (aka my 16yr old stepson) coming to stay for Easter - oh joy! Actually he's no trouble because from the moment he arrives tomorrow to the moment he leaves on Monday he's going to have his head stuck in his laptop playing Warhammer, and he will only emerge for meals! The last time he came up he was here for a week and I think we only managed to get 6 words out of him the entire time. Communicative he's not - still I think thats fairly typical for a lad his age apparently. All my friends with kids that age have the same problem. Not that I'm complaining, it makes our life easy as we don't have to keep him entertained, but we are hoping that at the age of 18 he will emerge a whole and fully formed human being, like a majestic butterfly emerging from its chrysalis!

I had planned on going to the Black Country Museumthis weekend, which would have been fun, but it's just going to be too cold and wet. I'll have to wait for better weather, but it's a real shame as there's going to be an Easter Bonnet competition and Easter egg hunts etc, but I think the whole weekend will be a washout.

We also have my stepdaughter coming down from Manchester on Sunday, she's expecting a baby on the 30th, so we're hoping it doesn't decide to put in an early appearance! They have already chosen a name for it, as we know it's going to be a boy, and for some reason want to call it Jonah! Of course that's brought out all the whale jokes, especially as she has got bigger :-). Hubby is looking forward to being a Grandad for the 1st time. The last time we saw them he took them into Mothercare and really seemed to enjoy himself choosing a new Moses basket for them. Going by how he is with my grandson, I think he'll be a terrific Grampy and he won't have to wait much longer :-).

I know I moan about the Boy Wonder spending all his time on his laptop, but I'm a fine one to complain. I tend to spend almost as much time on mine and that's just what I'll be doing over the holiday weekend. It will be split between my blog and associated activities and Ancestry.com as I have just been given some more info for a family history I have been doing for a friend at work. She's having it done for her father in law's 80th birthday as a surprise.

I have got one branch of the family back to 1700 and may be able to get beyond that with a bit more digging. Another branch is quite interesting in that they were artificial eye makers. I think they started out making them for stuffed birds and animals as the earliest ancestor I have traced was an engraver, but he had a bird stuffing business on the side, which is what they called taxidermy in the early 19th century. His sons carried on the business when he died and one of them moved up from Bristol to Birmingham and started a glass eye business up here and then gradually developed a process to produce hollow human glass eyes - which were of course much lighter than the traditional solid glass or wooden ones available at the time (Anyone who has seen Pirates of the Caribbbean will remember Ragetti chasing his around the deck!). So as you can imagine they became very popular. Anyway I will have fun filling in a few more gaps for this over the weekend.

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend and wish you all a Happy Easter (and dont eat too many Easter Eggs!:-)

Whew! I'm glad it's Monday! We've had a hectic weekend and a full house, as my stepdaughter, aka Katiebug came to stay with her partner and baby Jonah (we used to call her The Whale when she was pregnant with him!) on Friday. Also my stepson, the Boy Wonder arrived on Saturday. (we now call him the Boy Wanderer for reasons I'll explain later).

Anyway, we had a lovely time, Jonah is such a good baby, he sleeps all night now and spends a lot of time gurgling and babbling away to himself, hardly cried at all apart from when he got hungry. He is 4 months old now and I can't believe how the time has flown. It only seems like yesterday we went to see him when he was a day old.

Hubby does all the cooking in our house (aren't I a lucky girl?!) and made a great steak and mushroom pie for dinner on Friday, the most wonderful spaghetti bolognese on Saturday and a big roast chicken Sunday lunch with all the trimmings yesterday. I think he was quite relieved to be able to relax yesterday afternoon once Katiebug & co had left after lunch. The Boy Wonder had gone into Birmingham to meet friends so he was away most of the day which gave us the house back.

About 7 o'clock the BW rang to say he was going to the cinema to see The Mummy 3, so would be back later. About 9.45 we got another call! He was stuck at Bournville station (about 3 stops away) as the train had been full and he had stepped off to let a crowd of Japanese tourists off with their luggage. By the time they had all cleared out of the way, the train had started pulling out of the station and he had missed it! (Yeah, I know! Sounds like a tall story to me too, but there you go!)Well, as you may imagine Hubby was not best pleased having to dash out and go to his rescue, as the next train wasn't for another half hour and he had settled down for a nice rest.

This is not the first escapade the BW has had on trains. A couple of months ago he came up to stay from Salisbury and had to change at Birmingham New Street for the local stopping train down to us. We had arranged to meet him at our local station after work. So we duly drove to the station and parked up. We could see the trains stopping and letting off the passengers. We rang him on the mobile to check he had arrived at Birmingham OK. Where are you we asked "I'm on the train, should be there in 10 minutes" he replied.

10 minutes later a train arrived and the passengers got off, but no sign of the BW. He must be on the next one we said, so we waited, and waited! Half an hour and 3 trains later there was stil no sign of him. We rang him again "Where are you?" "On the train" "what was the last station you went through?" "I don't know" "Well ****** find out!, ask someone!". We can hear him asking someone across from him and a voice saying Bristol. This is not the answer we wanted. He is only on the Express back down south! "Whats the next station?" we ask. He consults the other passengers and we hear the reply Gloucester! OMG! This means he is going to be stuck over 50 miles from here.

We go home and await developments. Katiebug rings from Manchester. The BW has rung her and not us! so we ring the BW for an update. He has arrived in Gloucester and fortunately there is a return train in 10 minutes, so he'll go back to Birmingham and change there to come to us. So 4 hours later than expected he finally turns up!